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\ 

Me. JOHN BEiaHT'S 

SPEECH AT KOCHDALE 

DECEMBEB 4, 1861, 



ON 



THE AMERICAN CRISIS. 



[BVom tlie REBELXiION RECORD, in Advance of tlie Third Voluxa* 



( 

NEW YORK: ei 

G-. P. PTJTlSrAM, 532 Broadway. 

C. T. EVANS, Gen. Agent. 
1862. 






A 



? 



DOCUMENTS AND NAERATIYES. 



Doc. 1. 
SPEECH OF JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 

At a dinner given to Mr. Bright by liis fellow- 
townsmen, at Rochdale, Eng., on Wednesday 
evening, Dec. 4, about two hundred and fifty 
gentlemen were present, being as many as the 
public hall could accommodate, and the galleries 
were filled with a numerous assemblage of ladies, 
among whom was Mrs. Bright. On the plat- 
form were the Mayor of Rochdale, (Mr. J. T. Pa- 
gan,) who was in the chair ; Mr. Bazley, M.P., 
Mr. George Wilson, Messrs. J. and T. Bright, 
Mr. T. Livsey, the Mayor of Manchester, (Mr. 
Goadsby,) the American consul at Liverpool, 
(Mr. T. H. Dudley,) and others. 

After the toast of " The Queen " and " The 
Houses of Parliament," 

Mr. Bazley, M.P., in response to the latter, 
said there was no more distinguished member 
in the House than their esteemed friend and 
fellow-townsman Mr. Briglit. [Cheers.] And 
just as peoi)Ie were very often asking, " What 
will Mrs. Grundy say ? " so in the House of 
Commons he heard on every occasion the in- 
quiry, " What will Bright say?" [Laughter 
and applause.] There was much in the present 
House of Commons that was creditable to it; 
but at the same time he believed, with them, 
that it needed amendment. [Rear, hear.] 
They wanted also a retrenchment in their ex- 
penditure; and, above all, the maintenance of 
peace, and the continuance of pacific relations 
between Old England and the United States. 
[Gheers.] 

The next toast. " The health of Mr. Cobden, 
the member for Rochdale," was most entliusi- 
astically received, the company rising to give 
three cheers. 

The following letter from Mr. Cobden was 
read : — 

" MlDHURBT, Dec. 2. 

" Dear Sir : I need not assure you with what 

pleasure I should accept your invitation to be 

present at the entertain'iient which is to be 

offered by his neighbors, to my friend Mr. 

Vol. III.— Doc. 1 



Bright. It tempts me sorely, and yet I will 
not break the rule by which I have proliibited 
myself from attending any public meeting this 
winter, with the view of husbanding my health 
for the labors of the coming session. The cir- 
cumstances of the present moment make rae 
regret my inability to meet my constituents. 
I should have been glad to have expre-sed my 
views of the public questions of the dav , o-<pe- 
cially in reference to our relations \i\d< the 
United States, to which a recent eve, it has 
given a sudden importance. I allude, of course, 
to the capture of Messrs, Slidel! ind Mason oa 
board a British steamer. On tins subject I 
should have urged the propriety of suspending 
a final judgment until we had time to bear 
whether the American Government bad author- 
ized this act of their naval ofiicer ; ai'-.l, if so, 
on what ground they justified the proct,;'iing. 
I have seen with some surprise the assumpi'rin 
in certain quarters that, from the moment wheii 
our legal authorities have given their opinion 
on the point at issue, the question is settled, 
and that we have only to proceed to enforce 
their award. It is forgotten that the matter in 
dispute must be decided not by the British, but 
by international law, and that if the President's 
Government should assume the responsibility 
of the act of their naval ofiicer, they will claim 
for the reasoning and the precedents urged by 
their legal advisers at Washington, the same 
consideration which they are bound to give to 
the law officers of the British Crown. To re- 
fuse this would be to deny that equality before 
the law which is the rule of all civilized States, 
and to arrogate for ourselves, as interested par- 
ties, arbitrary and dictatorial power. Had I 
been able to meet my constituents, I sliould 
have in their name, and with, I know, their full 
concurrence, repudiated the language of tliose 
public writers who, without waiting till both 
j)arties have had a hearing, have given utter- 
ances to threats, Avhich, if they are suppo.sed to 
emanate from the British people, must render 
compliance on the part of the American Gov- 
ernment diflicult, if not impossible. What- 



REBELLION RECORD, 1 860-6 L 



ever be the issue of the legal controversy, this 
is a question whicli we cannot hope to bring to 
a more satisfactory issue by an appeal to arms. 
We endeavored to impose our laws by force on 
the Americans when they were three millions 
of colonists, and we know the result. Again, 
in 1812, when we were belligerents, and the 
United States, with eight millions of people, 
■were neutral, and after we had for years sub- 
jected their vessels to search and seizure — 
which will now probably be adduced as prece- 
dents to justify the recent proceeding on their 
part — a war broke out on this very question of 
belligerent rights at sea, which, after two years 
of nmtual slaughter and pillage, was terminated 
by a treaty of peace in which, by tacit agree- 
ment, no allusion was made to the original cause 
of the war. With these examples, can we 
reasonably hope by force of arms to compel 
the 20,000,000 of Americans who are now 
united under the Federal Government to accept 
our exclusive interpretation of the law of na- 
tions? Besides, the mere settlement of the 
question of the Trent does not dispose of our 
difficulties and dangers. We require a complete 
revision of the international maritime code -ft-ith 
a view to its simplification, and to bring it into 
harmony with the altered circumstances of the 
age ; and to this, it must in justice be admitted, 
the Americans have not been the obstacle. 
More than five years ago the Government of 
Washington proposedto the European Powers to 
exempt private property at sea from capture by 
armed vessels of every kind— a proposal which, in 
his Message to Congress, President Pierce stated 
had been favorably received by Russia and 
France, but which was i-ejected by our Govern- 
ment, acting in opposition to the unanimous 
opinion of the commercial bodies of this coun- 
try. Subsequently Mr. Buchanan's Govern- 
ment enlarged this offer by proposing to abol- 
ish blockades so far as purely mercantile ports 
were concerned, but again this met Avith no 
favor from our Government. The details of 
this plan are but imperfectly known, as no 
official documents have been given to the Brit- 
ish public. But, after perusing the statement 
made by our Foreign Minister in tlie House of 
Commons, on the 18th of February last, the 
painful impression is left on my mind that, had 
this offer of the United States Government, in- 
stead of being opposed, been promptly and 
frankly accepted by England, our commerce 
with the Southern ports of that country might 
have at this moment been uninterrupted, and 
Lancashire would have hardly felt any incon- 
venience from the civil war in America. I Avas 
absent from Parliament when these great ques- 
tions were incidentally referred to, for all seri- 
ous discussion on the subject seems to have 
been discouraged by the Government ; but I 
think I shall be able to show on a future occa- 
sion tliat no other country is interested to half 
the extent of England in carrying out these 
propositions of the United States Government. 
1 would go a step further, and exempt from 



visitation, search, and obstruction of every 
kind, all neutral merchant ships on the ocean 
or open sea, in time of war, as well as in time 
of peace. The commerce of the world has be- 
come too vast, and its movements too rapid, to 
permit of merchant vessels of all nations be- 
ing, everywhere, liable to searclf and detention, 
merely because two Powers in some quarter 
of the globe choose to be at war. This state 
of things might have been endurable some cen- 
turies ago, when war was regarded as the nor- 
mal state of society, and when the neutrality 
of a great Power was almost unknown, but it 
is utterly intolerable in an age of steam naviga- 
tion and free trade. But let it not be forgotten 
by the British public, in the present moment 
of irritation, that England has always been, and 
still is, the great obstacle to a liberal and hu- 
mane m.odification of the maritime law of na- 
tions in the interest of neutrals, and that her 
assent alone is wanting to sweep the musty 
maxims of Puffendorf and the rest into that 
oblivion which has happily engulfed the kindred 
absurdities of protection. I will not attempt, 
within the space of a letter, to touch upon the 
other issues involved in this deplorable civil 
war. There is one point only on which I will 
add a remark. An opinion seems to be enter- 
tained by some parties, here and on the Conti- 
nent, that it is in the power of the Govern- 
ments of England and France to control if not 
put an end to the confiict. I entertain the 
strongest conviction, on the contrary, that any 
act of intervention on the part of a European 
Power, whether by breaking the blockade, or a 
premature acknowledgment of the independence 
of the South, or in any other way, can have no 
other effect but to aggravate and protract the 
quarrel. History tells us how greatly the hor- 
rors of the French Revolution sprung from the 
intervention of the foreigner. Were a similar 
element thrown in to infuriate the American 
contest, every restraining motive for forbear- 
ance, every thought of comjiroraise or con- 
ciliation, would be cast to the winds,— the 
North would avail itself of the horrible weapon 
always ready at hand, and by calling in the aid 
of the negro, would carry the fire and swprd 
of a servile Avar into the South, and make it a 
desolation and a wilderness. So far from ex- 
pecting that the raAV material of our great in- 
dustry would reach us sooner in consequence of 
such an intervention, I believe the more prob- 
able result would be tlie destruction of the cot- 
ton plant itself throughout the Southern States 
of the Union. I cannot conclude without thank- 
ing you for your kind offer of hospitality ; and 
I remain, my dear sir, yours very truly, 

" Ed. Cobden. 

"John T. Pagan, Esq., Mayor." 

The health of Mr, Bright Avas afterward 
given, amid tumultuous cheering. 

Mr. Bright said : When the gentlemen who 
invited me to this dinner called upon me, I felt 
tlieir kindness very sensibly, and now I am 
deeply grateful to my friends around me and to 



DOCUMENTS, 



you all for the abundant manifestations of it 
with wliich I have been received to-niglit. I 
am, as yon all know, at this moment surrounded 
by my neighbors and friends, [hear, hear,] and I 
may say with the utmost trutli that I value the 
good opinion of those who now hear my voice 
far beyond the opinion of any equal number of 
the inhabitants of this country selected from 
any portion of it. You have by this great kind- 
ness tliat you have shown me, given a proof that 
in the main you do not disapprove of my public 
labors, [cheers,] that at least you are willing to 
express an opinion that the motives by which 
I have been actuated have been honest and 
honorable to myself, and that that course has 
not been entirely without service to my coun- 
try. [Cheers.] Coming to this meeting, or to 
any similar meeting, I always tind that the sub- 
jects for discussion appear to be infinite, and 
far more than it is possible to treat. In these 
times in which we live, by the inventions of 
the telegraph and the steamboat, and the rail- 
road, and the multiplication of newspapers, we 
seem continually to stand as on the top of an 
exceeding higli mountain, from which wo be- 
hold all the kingdoms of the earth and all the 
glory of them, and, unhappily, not only their 
glory, but their crimes, and their follies, and 
their calamities. [Hear, hear.] Seven years 
ago our eyes were turned with anxious expec- 
tation to a remote corner of Europe, where live 
nations were contending in bloody strife for an 
object whicli, possibly, hardly one of them com- 
prehended, and, if they did comprehend it, 
which all sensible men among them must have 
known to be absolutely impracticable. Four 
years ago we were looking still further to the 
East, and we saw there a gigantic revolt in a 
great dependency of the Britisii Crown, arising 
nuainly from gross neglect and from the inca- 
pacity of England, up to that moment, to gov- 
ern a country which it had known how to con- 
quer. Two years ago we looked South to the 
plains of Lombardy. We saw a strife there, in 
which every man in England took a strange in- 
terest, [hear, hear ;] and we have welcomed, as 
the result of that strife, tiie addition of a new 
and great kingdom to the list of European 
States. [Cheers.] Well, now our eyes are 
turned in a contrary direction ; we look to the 
West, and there we see a struggle in progress 
of the very highest interest to England and to 
humanity at large. We see there a nation, 
which I sliall call the transatlantic English na- 
tion, [hear, hear,] the inheritor and partaker of 
the historic glories of this country. [JTear.] 
We see it torn with intestine broils, and suifer- 
ing from calamities from which for more than 
a century past — in fact, for nearly two centu- 
ries past, this country has been excmi)t. Tliat 
struggle is of especial interest to lis. We re- 
member a description which one of our great 
poets gives of Rome in its condition of decay. 
He describes it as — 

" Lono mother of dead empires." 



But England is the living mother of great 
nations on the American and on the Australiaa 
continents, and she promises to belt the whole 
world with her knowledge, her civilizations, 
and even something more than the freedom 
that she herself enjoys. [Cheers.] Eighty-five 
years ago, about the time when some of our 
oldest townsmen were very little children, there 
Avere on the North American continent colo- 
nies, mainly of Englishmen, containing about 
3,000,000 souls. These colonies we have seen 
a year ago constituting the United States of 
North America, and comprising a population of 
not less than 30,000,000 of souls. We know 
that in agriculture and manufactui'e, with the 
exception of this kingdom, there is no country 
in the world which, as to these arts, may bo 
placed in advance of the United States. [AjJ- 
2ylause.] With regard to inventions, I believe, 
within the last 30 years, we have received more 
useful inventions from the United States than 
we have received from all the countries of Eu- 
rope. [Rear, hear.] In that country there are 
probably ten times as many miles of telegraph 
as there are in this country, and there are at 
least five or six times as many miles of rail- 
ways. The tonnage of its shipping is at least 
equal to ours, if it does not exceed ours, llie 
jjrisons of that country — for even in countries 
the most favored, so far, prisons are needful — 
have been models for the other nations of the 
earth ; and many European Governments have 
sent commissions beyond the Atlantic to inquire 
into the admirable system of education, estab- 
lished universally in their free schools tlu-ongii- 
out the free and Northern States. [Cheers.] 
If I were to speak of them in a religious aspect, 
I should say that Avithin that period of time Lo 
which their short history goes back, there i^ 
nothing on the face of the earth, and never has 
been besides, to equal the magnificent arrange- 
ments of churches and ministers, and of all the 
appliances which are thought necessary for a 
nation to teach morality and Christianity to the 
people. Besides all this, when I state that for 
many years past the annual public exjsenditure 
of tlie Government of that country, has been 
somewhere between ten and fifteen millions, I 
need not perhaps say further, that there has 
existed in that country, among all the people, 
an amount of comfort and prosperity, of abound- 
ing plenty, such as I believe no other country 
in the world, in any age, has displayed. This 
is a very fine, but still a very true, ])icture, 
[hear, hear ;] but it has another side, to Avhich I 
must advert. There has been one great feature 
in that country — one great contrast, Avhieh has 
been pointed to by all men who have com- 
mented upon tlie United States as a feature of 
danger and a contrast calculated to give pain. 
You have had in tliat country the utmost liber- 
ty to the wliite man, but bondage and degrada- 
tion to the black man. Now, rely upon it, that 
wherever Christianity lives and flourishes, there 
must grow up from it necessarily a conscience 
which is hostile to any oppression and to any 



KEBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



wrong; and therefore, from the hour -when the 
United States Constitution was formed, so long 
as it left there this great evil, then compara 
tively small, hut now become so great, it left 
thei'e the seeds of that which an American 
statesman has so happily described — of that 
" irrepressible conflict " of which now the 
whole world is witness. [Cheers], It has been 
a common thing for men disposed to carp at the 
United States to point at this blot upon their 
fair fame, and to compare it with the boast- 
ed declaration of equality in their deed and 
Declaration of Independence. But we must re- 
collect who sowed this seed of trovible, and how 
and by whom it has been cherished. "Without 
dwelling upon this for more than a moment, I 
should like to read to you a paragraph from 
" Instructions proposed to bo given to the Vir- 
ginian Delegates to Congress," in the month 
of August, 1774, and from the pen of Mr. Jeffer- 
son, perhaps the ablest man produced in the 
United States at that time, and actively engaged 
in its affairs, and who was afterward, I think, 
for two periods President of the Republic. lie 
writes this from a slave State — from the State 
of Virginia: — 

" For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes 
for no conceivable reason at all, His Majesty the 
King of England has rejected laws of the most 
salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic 
slavery is the great object of desire in those 
colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in 
their infant state. But, previous to the en- 
franchisement of the slaves we have, it is neces- 
saiy to exclude all farther inportations from 
Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect 
this, by pi'ohibitions and by imposing duties 
wliich might amount to prohibition, have been 
hitherto defeated by His Majesty's negative, 
thus preferring the immediate advantage of a 
few British corsairs to the lasting interests of 
the American States, and to the rights of human 
nature deeply wounded by this infamous prac- 
tice." [Loud cheers.] 

I read that merely to show that two years 
before the Declaration of Independence was 
signed, Mr. Jefferson, acting on behalf of those 
whom he represented in Virginia, wrote that 
protest against the course of the British Govern- 
ment, which prevented the colonists abolishing 
tlie slave trade, preparatory to the abolition of 
slavery itself. The United States Constitution 
left the slave question for every State to man- 
age for itself. It was a question then too dif- 
ficult to settle, apparently ; but every man had 
the hope and belief that in a few years slavery 
would of itself become extinct. Then there 
happened that great event in the annals of 
manufactures and commerce ; it was disovered 
that in those States that article which we in 
this country so much depend upon could be 
produced of the best quality needful for manu- 
facture, and at a moderate price ; and from that 
day to this the growth of cotton has increased 
there, its consumption has increased here, and 
a value which no man dreamt of when Jefferson 



wrote that paper has been given to slaves and 
slave industry, and thus it has grown up to 
that gigantic institution which now threatens 
either its own overthrow or the overthrow of 
that which is a million times more valued — the 
great rej)ublic of the United States. [Loud 
cheers.] The crisis at which we have arrived 
now — I say " we," for, after all, we are as much 
interested in the crisis nearly as if I were mak- 
ing this speech in the city of Boston or New 
York — the crisis which has now arrived was 
inevitable. I say that the conscience of the 
North, never satisfied with the institution, was 
constantly pricking some man forward to take 
a more extreme view of the question, and there 
grew up naturally a section, — it may be not a 
very numerous one — in favor of abolition ; and 
a great and powerful party resolved at least 
upon the restraint and control of slavery, so 
that it should not extend beyond the States and 
the area which it now occupies. But now, if we 
look at the Government of the United States, 
almost ever since the Union, we shall find that 
the Southern power has been mostly dominant 
there. If you take six and thirty years after 
the formation of the present Constitution, I 
think about 1787, you will find that for 32 of 
those years every President was a Southern 
man; and if you take the period from 1828 
until 18G0, you will find that on every election 
for President the South voted in the majority, 
"Well, we know what an election is in the United 
States for President of the Republic. There is 
a most extended suffrage, and there is a ballot- 
box. The President and the House of Repre- 
sentatives are elected by the same electors, and 
generally they are elected at the same time ; 
and it follows, therefore, almost inevitably, that 
the House of Representatives is in complete 
accord in public policy with the President for 
the time being. Every four years there springs 
from the vote created by the whole people a 
President over that great nation. I think the 
woiid affords no finer spectacle than this ; I 
think it affords no higher dignity — that there is 
no greater object of ambition on the political 
stage on which men are permitted to move. 
You may point, if you like, to hereditary roy- 
alty, to crowns coming down through successive 
generations in the same families, to thrones 
based on prescription or on conquest, to scep- 
tres wielded over veteran legions, or subject 
realms ; but to my mind there is nothing more 
worthy of reverence or obedience, nothing 
more sacred, than the authority of the freely 
chosen magistrate of a great and free people. 
[Loud cheers.] And, if there he on earth and 
among men any right divine to govern, surely 
it rests with a ruler so chosen and so appointed. 
[Cheers.] This process of a great election was 
gone though a year ago, and the South, tli.at 
had so long been successful, found itself de- 
feated. That defeat was followed instantly by 
secession, insurrection, and war. In the multi- 
tude of articles which have been brought before 
us in the newspapers within the last few 



DOCUMENTS. 



months, I have no donbt you have seen, as I 
have seen it stated, that tliis question was very 
much hke that upon which the colonies origi- 
nally revolted against the Crown of England. It 
is amazing either how little many newspaper 
writers know, or how little they think that you 
know. [Laughter.] When the war of Inde- 
pendence commenced in America, 90 years ago 
or more, there was no representation there at 
all. The question was whether a Ministry in 
Downing street, and a corrupt and borough- 
mongering Parliament at Westminster, should 
impose taxes upon three millions of English 
subjects Avho had left their native country and 
established themselves in North America. But 
now the question is not of under-representation 
or of no representation, because, as is perfectly 
notorious, the representation of the South is 
not only complete, but in excess, for in distrib- 
uting the number of representatives to the 
number of people — which is done every ten 
years in the United States — three out of every 
five slaves are counted for the South as if they 
were white men and free men, and the number 
of members given to them is so much greater 
than it would be if the really free men and 
white men only were counted, and it has fol- 
lowed from that that the South has had in the 
House of Representatives about twenty members 
more than it had any right to, upon the princi- 
ple upon which members were apportioned to 
the Northern and the Free States. Therefore 
you will see at once that there is no kind of com- 
parison between the state of things when the 
colonies revolted and the state of things now, 
when this fearful and wicked insurrection has 
broken out. But there is another cause, which 
is sometimes in England assigned for this great 
misfortune, which is the protective theories in 
operation in the Union, and the maintenance 
of a high tariff. It happens in regard to this 
that no American, certainly no one I ever met 
with, attributes the disaster of the Union to 
that cause. It is an argument made use of by 
ignorant Englishmen, but never by informed 
Americans. Have not I already shown you 
that the South, during almost the whole exist- 
ence of the Union, has been dominant at Wash- 
ington, and during that period the tariff has 
existed ? There has been dissatisfaction occa- 
sionally with it, there can be no doubt ; and 
at times the tariff has been higher than was 
thought just or reasonable, or necessary, by 
some of the States of the South. But the very 
first Act of the United States which levies 
duties on imports, passed immediately after the 
Union was formed, recites that " It is necessary 
for the encouragement and protection of manu- 
factures to levy the duties which follow ; " and 
during the war with England, from 1812 to 
1815, the people of the United States had to pay 
for all the articles they brought from Europe 
many times over the natural cost of those arti- 
cles, on account of the interruption of the traffic 
by the English navy ; and wlien the war was 
over it was felt by everybody desirable that 



they should encourage maimfactures in their 
own country ; and seeing that England was at 
that precise moment passing a law to prevent 
any wheat coming from America until wheat in 
England had risen to the price of 84s. per quar- 
ter, we may feel quite satisfied that the doc- 
trines of protection originally entertained did 
not find less favor at the close of the war in 
1815. Now, there is one remarkable point 
with regard to this matter which should not be 
forgotten. Twelve months ago, at the meeting 
of the Congress of the United States, which 
takes place on the first Monday in December, 
there were various proposals of compromise, 
and committee meetings of various kinds held, 
to try and devise some mode of settling the 
question between the North and South, so that 
the disunion might not go on ; but, though I 
read carefully every thing that was published 
in the English newspapers from the United 
States on that subject, I do not recollect that 
in any single instance the question of the tariff 
was referred to, or that any change was pro- 
posed or suggested in that matter as likely to 
have any efiect whatever upon the question of 
secession. [Hear.] Now, there is another 
point, too, — that whatever be the influence of 
tariffs upon the United States, it is as perni< iou3 
to the West as to the South ; and further, Loui- 
siana, which is a Southern State and a seceded 
State, has always voted along with Pennsvlva- 
nia, until last year, in favor of protection iov its 
sugar; while Pennsylvania wished protection 
for its coal and iron. But if the tariff' was 
onerous and grievous, was that a reason for this 
great insurrection ? Has ever a country had a 
tariff — especially in the article of food — raoro 
onerous and more cruel than that v/hich rre i.ad 
in this country twenty years ago? [C'l^ei-s.] 
We did not secede. We did not rebel. What 
we did was to raise money for the purpose of 
distributing over all the country perfect infor- 
mation upon that question ; and many men, as 
you know, devoted all their labors for several 
years to teach the great and wise doctrines of 
free trade to the people of England. Why, the 
price of a single gunboat, the keep of a single 
regiment, the garrison of a single fort, the ces- 
sation of their trade for a single day, costs more 
than it would have cost them to spread all over 
the intelligent people of the United States the 
most complete statement of the whole ques- 
tion ; and West and South, having no interest 
in protection, could, united, have easily revised, 
or, if need had been, could have repealed the 
tariff altogether No, the question is a very 
different and far more grave question. It is the 
question of slavery. [Hear, hear.] For thirty 
years it has been constantly coming to the sur- 
face, disturbing social life, and overthrowing 
almost all political harmony in the working of 
the United States. In the North there is no 
secession, there is no collision. These disturb- 
ances and this insurrection are found wholly 
in the South and in the slave States, and there- 
fore I think the man who says otherwise, and 



REBELLION RECORD. 1860-61. 



who contends that it is the tariff, or any thing 
whatsoever other than slavery, is either liim- 
self deceived, or he endeavors to deceive others. 
The object of the South is this — to escape from 
the majority which wishes to limit the area of 
slavery. [Ilcar.] They wish to found a slave 
State, freed from the influences and the opinion 
of freedom. The free States in the North, 
then, now stand before the world the advocates 
and defenders of freedom and civilization. The 
slave States of the South ofter themselves for 
the recognition of Christian nations, based upon 
the foundation, the unchangeable foundation in 
their eyes, of slavery and barbarism. [Hear, 
hear.] I will not discuss the guilt of men who, 
Ministers of a great nation, only last year con- 
spired to overthrow it. I will not point out or 
recapitulate the statements of the fraudulent 
manner in which they disposed of tlie funds in 
the national exchequer. I will not point out 
by name any of the men in this conspiracy, 
whom history will designate by titles that they 
would not like to hear. But I sny that slavery 
has sought to break up the most free govern- 
ment in the Avorld, and to found a new State 
in this nineteenth century, whose corner-stone 
js the perpetual bondage of millions of men. 
[Hear, hear.] Having thus described what ap- 
pears to me brieiiy the truth of this matter, 
what is the course that England would be ex 
pected to pursue? We should be neutral so far 
as regards mingling in the strife. "We were 
neutral in the strife in Italy, but we were not 
neutral iu opinion or in sympathy. [Hear, hear.] 
You know perfectly Avell that throughout the 
whole of Italy, at this moment, there is a feel- 
ing that,. though no shot was fired from an 
English ship, though no English soldier trod 
their soil, still the opinion of England was po- 
tent in Europe, and did much for the creation 
of the Italian kingdom. [Hear.] Well, with 
regard to the United States, you know how 
much we hate slavery — that is, awhile ago you 
thought you knew that we had given £20,000,- 
000, that is, £1,000,000 a year nearly iu taxes, 
to free 800,000 slaves in the English coloiiies. 
You knew, or you thouglit you knew, how 
much you were in love with free government 
everyAvhere, although it might not take pre- 
cisely the form of our government — free go%^- 
ernment in Italy, free government in Switzer- 
land, free government, under republican forms, 
in the- United States of America, and with all 
this every man would have said that England 
would wish the American Union to be prosper- 
ous and eternal. Now, suppose we turn our 
eyes to the East, to the empire of Russia, for a 
moment. In Eussia, as you know, there has 
been one of the most important and magnifi- 
cent clianges of policy ever seen in any coun- 
try within the last year or two. The present 
Emperor of Russia, following the wishes of his 
father, has insisted upon the abolition of serf- 
dom in that empire, [hear, hear.] and 23,000,- 
000 human beings, lately serfs, little better than 
real slaves, have been put in a path of elevation 



to the ranks of freedom, [Cheers.] Now, suj)- 
pose that the millions of serfs of Eussia had 
been chiefly in the south of Russia. We hear 
that the nobles of Eussia, to whom these serfH 
belong in a great measure, have been very hos- 
tile to this change, and that there has even been 
some danger that the peace of that empire 
might be disturbed during this change. Sup- 
pose these nobles, for the purpose of maintain- 
ing in perpetuity the serfdom of Eussia, and bar- 
ring out twenty-three millions of your fellow- 
creatures from the rights of freedom, had estab- 
lished a great and secret conspiracy, and had 
risen iu a great and dangerous insurrection 
against the Eussian Government, I say that the 
people of England, although but seven years ago 
they were in mortal combat with Eussia, in the 
south of Europe, I believe that at this moment 
they would have prayed Heaven in all sin- 
cerity and fervor to give strength to the arm 
and success to the great wishes of the Emperor, 
and that that vile and pernicious insurrection 
might be suppressed. [Great cheering.] Now, 
let us look a little at what has been said and 
done in this country since the period when 
Parliament rose in the beginning of August. 
There have been two speeches to which I wish 
to refer, and in terms of approbation. The 
Duke of Argyle, a member of the present Gov- 
ernment, — and though I have not the smallest 
personal acquaintance with him, I am free to 
say that I believe him to be one of the most in- 
telligent and liberal of his order, [hear, hear,] — 
the Duke of Argyle delivered a speech which 
was fair and friendly to the Government of the 
United States. Lord Stanley [hear, hear] only 
a fortnight ago made a speech which it is im- 
possible to read without remarking the thought, 
the liberality, and the wisdom by which it is 
distinguished. He dotibted, it is true, whether 
the Union could be restored — but a man need 
not be hostile, and must not necessarily be 
friendly, to doubt that or the contrary — but he 
spoke Avith fairness and friendliness of the Gov 
ernnicnt of the United States, and he said thej 
were right and justifiable in the course they 
took, [hear ;] and he gave a piece of advice, now 
more important than it was even at the mo- 
ment when he gave it, tliat in the various inci- 
dents and accidents of a struggle of this nature, 
it became a people like this to be very mod- 
erate and very calm, and to avoid getting into 
that feeling of irritation which sometimes arises, 
and somctim.es leads to danger. [Hear, hear.] 
I mention these two speeches as from noble- 
men of great distinction in this country — 
speeches which I believe would have a bene- 
ficial effect on the other side of the Atlantic. 
Lord John Eussell, in the House of Commons 
during the last session, made a speech, too, in 
which he rebuked the impertinence of a young 
member of the House who spoke about the 
" bursting of the bubble Republic." [Hear, 
hear, and cheers.] It was a speech worthy of the 
best days of Lord John Russell. [Cheers.] But 
at a later period he spoko at Newcastle, on an 



DOCUMENTS. 



occasion something like this, when the inhabi- 
tants, or some portion of the inhabitants of that 
town invited him to a pnbHc dinner. He 
described the contest in words something like 
these, (I speak only from memory,) — "That 
the North is contending for empire, and the 
South for independence." Did he mean that 
the North was contending for empire, as Eng- 
land, when making some fresh conquest in In- 
dia? If he meant that, what he said was not 
true. But I recollect Lord John Russell, in the 
House of Commons some years ago, on an oc- 
casion when I had made some observations as 
to the unreasonable expenditure of the colonies, 
and complained that the people of England 
should be taxed to defray the expenses which 
the colonies themselves should be well able to 
bear, turned to mo with a sharpness which was 
not necessary, .and said, "The hon. member has 
no objection to make a great empire into a 
small one, but I have." {Loud cheers and 
laughte?'.] Perhaps if he lived in the United 
States, if he were a member of the Senate or 
House of Representatives there, he would doubt 
whether it was his duty to consent at once to 
the destruction of a great country ; to its sepa- 
ration, it may be, into two hostile camps ; or 
whether he would not try all means open to 
him, and open to the Government, to avert so 
unlooked-for and so dire a calamity. There are 
other speeches that have been made. I will 
not refer to them by any quotation. I will not, 
out of pity to some of the men who have ut- 
tered them, [laughter and cheers ;] I will not 
bring their names even before you, to give to 
them an endurance which I hope they will not 
have, [hear, hear ;] but I will leave them in the 
obscurity which they so richly merit. [Cheers.] 
But now you know as well as I do that of all 
the speeches made since the end of the session 
of Parliament by public men and politicians, 
the majority of them displayed either strange 
ignorance of American affairs, or a strange ab- 
sence of that cordiality and fricndsliip which, I 
maintain, our American kinsmen had a right to 
look for at our hands. [Hear, hear.] And if we 
part from the speakers and turn to the writers, 
what do we find there ? We find that which is 
reputed abroad, and has hitherto been reputed 
at home as the most powerful representative of 
English opinion — at least of the richer classes 
— we find tliat in that particular newspaper 
there has not been, since Mr. Lincoln took 
office in March last as President of the United 
States, one fair, and honorable, and friendly 
article on American affairs. [Hear, hear.] 
Some of you, I dare say, read it, but fortunate- 
ly now every district is so admirably supplied 
with local newspapers, that I trust, in all time 
to come, the people of England will drink of 
" purer streams nearer home," [cAecrs and laugh- 
ter,] and not from those streams which are 
muddied by party feeling and political intrigues, 
and by many motives that tend to any thing 
rather than the enlightenment and advantage 
of the people. Now, it has been said, and by 



that very paper, over and over again, " Why 
this war ? Why not separate peaceubly ? Why 
this fratricidal strife ? " I hope they will all b© 
against "fratricidal strife" in other respects; 
for, if it is true that God has made of one blood 
all the families of man to dwell on the face of 
all the earth, it must be a fratricidal strife, 
whether we are slaughtering Russians in tho 
Crimea or bombarding the towns on the sea- 
coast of the United States. [Cheers.] Now, no 
one will expect that I should stand forward as 
the advocate of war, or the defender of that 
great sum of all crime which is involved in 
war ; but when you are discussing a question 
of this nature, it is only fair you should discuss 
it upon principles which are acknowledged not 
only in the country where the strife is being 
carried on, but all but universally acknowledged 
in this country. When I discussed the question 
of tho Russian war seven or eight years ago, I 
always discussed it on the principles which 
were avowed by the Government and the peo- 
ple of England, and I took my facts from tlio 
blue books which were presented to Parliament. 
I take the liberty of doing that now in this 
case. I say that, looking at the principles 
avowed in England, and at all its policy, there 
is no man that is not absolutely a non-resistant 
in every sense, who can fairly challenge tlie 
conduct of the American Government in this 
war. It is a curious thing to find that the par- 
ty in this country which on every public ques- 
tion is in favor of war at any cost, when it 
comes to speak of the duty of the Government 
of the United States is in favor of " peace at 
any price." [Hear, hear.] I want to kno'^ 
whether it has ever been admitted by politician ^ 
and statesmen or by any people, that great 
nations can be broken up at any time by tiae 
will of any particular section of those nations? 
It has been tried occasionally in Ireland, [laugh- 
ter,] and if it had succeeded, history would 
have said, with very good cause. [Hear, hear.] 
But if any body tries noAV to get up a secession 
or insurrection in Ireland — which would be in- 
finitely less disturbing to every thing than seces- 
sion in the United States, because there is a 
boundary which nobody can dispute — I am 
quite sure The Times newspaper would have 
special correspondents, and would describe 
with all the glowing exultation in tho world 
the manner in which tho Irish insurrectionists 
were cut down and made an end of. Let any 
man try in England to restore the Heptarchy. 
Do 3'ou tliiiik that any politician in this country 
would think it a thing to be tolerated' for a 
moment? But if you will look at tho map of 
the United States, you will see that there is no 
country in tho world, prcjbably, at this moment, 
where any plan of separation between North 
and South, as far as the question of boundary 
is concerned, is so surrounded with insurmount- 
able ditficntics. For example, — Maryland is a 
slave State, but Maryland has by a very largo 
majority voted for tlio Union. Would Mary- 
land go South or North ? Kentucky is a &lav» 



8 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



State, and one of the finest in the Union, con- 
taining a fine people. Kentucky has voted for 
the Union, but has been invaded from the 
South. Missouri is a slave State; Missouri has 
not seceded, but has been invaded from the 
South, and there is a secession party in that 
State. There are parts of Virginia which have 
formed themselves into a new State, resolving 
to adhere to the North, and there is no doubt 
a considerable Northern and Union feeling in 
the State of Tennessee ; and I have no doubt 
that there is in every other State. Indeed, I 
am not sure that there is not now within the 
Bound of my voice a citizen of the United States 
[hear,] a citizen of the State of Alabama, who 
can tell you that there the question of secession 
has never been put to the vote, and that there 
are great mmibers of most reasonable, thought- 
ful, and just men in the State who entirely de- 
plore the condition of things there existing. 
Well, then, what would you do with all these 
States, and with what may be called the loyal 
portion of the population of these States? 
Would you allow them to be dragooned into 
this insurrection, and into becoming parts of a 
new State, to which they themselves are hos- 
tile ? But what would you do with the city 
of Washington? Washington is in a slave 
State. Would anybody have advised President 
Lincoln and his Cabinet, and all the members 
of Congress (House of Eepresentatives and Sen- 
ate) from the North, with their wives and chil- 
dren, and everybody else who was not positively 
in favor of the South, to set off on their melan- 
choly pilgrimage northward, leaving that capi- 
tal — hallowed to them by such associations, 
having its name even from the father of their 
country — leaving Washington to the South, be- 
cause Washington is situated in a slave State ? 
Again, what do you say to the Mississippi River, 
as you see it upon the map, the " father of wa- 
ters " rolling that gigantic stream to the ocean? 
Do you think that the fifty millions which one 
day Avill occupy the banks of that river, north- 
ward, will ever consent that that great stream 
should roll through a foreign, and, it mny be, a 
hostile State? And more, tlierc are four mill- 
ions of negroes in subjection. For them the 
American Union is directly responsible. They 
are not secessionists; they are now, as they 
always were, not citizens nor subjects, but le- 
gally under the care and power of the Govern- 
ment of the United States. Would you consent 
that these should be delivered up to the tender 
mercies of their task-masters, the defenders of 
slavery as an everlasting institution? [Chec7's.] 
Well, if all had been surrendered without a 
struggle, what then ? What would the writers 
in this newspaper and other newspapers have 
said ? If a bare rock in your empire, that would 
not keep a goat, a single goat alive, be touched 
by any foreign Power, why, the wliole empire 
IS roused to resistance. And if there be, from 
accident or from passion, the smallest insult to 
your flag, what do your newspaper writers say 
■apon that subject, and what is said in all your 



towns and upon all your exchanges ? I will 
tell you what they would have said if the Gov- 
ernment of the United States and the North 
had taken their insidious and dishonest advice. 
They would have said the great Eepublic is a 
failure, and Democracy has murdered patriot- 
ism, that history afibrds no example of such 
meanness, and of such cowardice, and they 
would have heaped unmeasured obloquy and 
contempt upon the people and Government 
who had taken that course. [Loud cheei'ing.'] 
Well, they tell you, these candid friends of the 
United States, they tell you that all freedom is 
gone ; that the Habeas Corpus Act, if they 
ever had one, is known no longer ; and that any 
man may be arrested at the dictum oi the Pres- 
ident or of the Secretary of State. Well, but 
in 1848, you recollect, many of you, that there 
was a small insurrection in Ireland. It was an 
absurd thing altogether, but what was done 
then? I saw, in one night, in the House of 
Commons, a bill for the suspension of the Ha- 
beas Corpus Act passed through all its stages. 
What more did I see ? I saw a bill brought in 
by the Whig Government of that day, Lord 
John Eussell being the Premier, which made 
speaking against the Government and against 
the Crown, which up to that time had been se- 
dition, which proposed to make it felony, and it 
was only by the greatest exertions of a few of 
the members that that act, in that particular, 
was limited to a period of two years. In the 
same session a bill was brought in, called an 
Alien Bill, which enabled the Home Secretary 
to take any foreigner whatsoever, not being a 
naturalized Englishman, and in 24 hours to send 
him out of the country. Although a man 
might have committed no crime, this might be 
done to him, apparently only on suspicion. But 
suppose that an insurgent army had been so 
near to London that you could see its outposts 
from every suburb of London — what then do 
you think would have been the regard of the 
Government of Great Britain for personal liber- 
ty, if it interfered with the necessity, and, as 
they might think, with the salvation of the 
State ? I recollect, in 1848, when the Habeas 
Corpus Act was suspended, that a nmnber of 
persons in Liverpool, men there of jjosition and 
of wealth, presented a petition to the House of 
Commons, praying — what ? That the Habeas 
Corpus Act should not be suspended ? No, but 
because they were not content with its suspen- 
sion in Ireland, praying the House of Commons 
to extend that suspension to Liverpool. [Laugh- 
ter.'] I recollect that at that time — and I am 
sure my friend Mr. Wilson will bear me out in 
what I say — the Mayor of Liverpool tele- 
graphed to the Mayor of Manchester, and mes- 
sages were sent on to London nearly every 
hour, and the Mayor of Manchester heard from 
the Mayor of Liverpool that certain Irishmen in 
Liverpool, conspirators, or fellow-conspirators, 
with tliose in Ireland, Avere going to burn the 
cotton warehouses of Liverpool and the cotton 
mills of Lancashire. [Laughter.] And I read 



DOCUMENTS. 



that petition. I took it from the table of the 
House of Commons and read it, and I handed 
it over to a statesman of great eminence, who 
has been but just removed from us — a man not 
second to any in the House of Commons for his 
knowledge of affairs and for his great capacity 
— I refer to Sir James Graham [hear, heai'] — I 
handed to him this petition He read it ; and 
after he had read, he rose from his seat, and 
laid it upon the table with a gesture of abhor- 
rence and disgust. [Loud cheers.] Now, that 
was a petition from the town of Liverpool, in 
which some persons bave lately been making 
themselves very ridiculous by their conduct in 
this matter. [Hear, hear.] There is one more 
point. It has been said, " How much better it 
•would be " — not for the United States, but — 
*' for us, that these States should be divided." I 
recollect meeting a gentleman in Bond street one 
day, before the session was over — a rich man, 
and one whose voice is very much heard in the 
House of Commons ; but his voice is not heard 
there when he is on his legs, but when he is 
cheering other speakers, [laughter,] and he said 
to me, " After all, this is a sad business about 
the United States ; but still I think it is very 
much better that they should be split up. In 
twenty years" (or in fifty years, I forget which 
it was) " they will be so powerful that they will 
bully all Europe." [Laughter.] And a distin- 
guished member of the House of Commons — 
distinguished there by his eloquence, distin- 
guished more by his many writings — I mean 
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton — he did not exact- 
ly express a hope, but he ventured on some- 
thing like a prediction, that the time would 
come when there would be, I don't know how 
many, but as many Republics or States in 
America as you can count upon your fingers. 
There cannot be a meaner motive than this 
that I am speaking of, in forming a judgment 
on this question — that it is " better for us ; " 
for whom ? the peoi)]e of England, or the Gov- 
ernment of England? — that the United States 
should be severed, and that that continent 
should be as the continent of Europe is, in 
many States, and subject to all the contentions 
and disasters which have accompanied the his- 
tory of the States of Europe. [Applause.] I 
should say that if a man had a great heart 
witliin him he w^ould rather look forward to 
the day when, from that jjoint of land which is 
habitable nearest to the Pole to the shores of 
the Great Gulf, the whole of that vast conti- 
nent might become one great federation of 
States — that, without a great army and without 
a great navy, not mixing itself up with the en- 
tanglements of European politics — without a 
custom-house inside through the whole length 
. aad breadth of its territory, but with freedom 
everywhere, equality everywhere, law every- 
where, peace everywhere— would afford at last 
some liope that man is not forsaken of Heaven, 
and that the future of our race might be better' 
than the past. [Prolonged cheering.] It is a 
common observation that our frionds in Amer- 



ica are very irritable. "Well, I think it is very 
likely, of a considerable number of them, to be 
quite true. Our friends in America are in- 
volved in a great struggle. There is nothing 
like it before in their history. No country ia 
the world was ever more entitled, in my opin- 
ion, to the sympathy and the forbearance of all 
friendly nations than are the United States at 
this moment. [Hear, hear.] They have there 
newspapers that are no wiser than oura. 
[Laughter.] They have there some papers, 
one at least, which, up to the election of Mr. 
Lincoln, were his bitterest and unrelenting foes, 
but when the war broke out, and it was not 
safe to take the line of Southern support, were 
obliged to turn round and to support the prev- 
alent opinion of the country. But they un- 
dertook to serve the South in another way, 
and that Avas by exaggerating every difficulty, 
and mis-stating every fact, if so doing could 
serve their object of creating distrust between 
the people of the Northern States and the peo- 
ple of this United Kingdom. [Hear, hear.] If 
ITie Times, in this country, has done all that it 
could to poison the minds of the peoiile of 
England, and to irritate the minds of th - :)eo]'!e 
of America, the iVew To7-Jc Herald, I am sorry 
to say, has done, I think, all that it could, or 
that it dared, to provoke mischief between the 
Government in Washington and the Govern- 
ment in London. [Hear, hear.] Now there is 
one thing which I must state, that I think they 
have a solid reason to complain of; and I am 
very sorry to have to mention it, because it 
blames our present Foreign Minister, against 
whom I am not anxious to say a word, and, 
recollecting his speech in the House of Coiu- 
mons, I should be slow to conclude that he had 
any feeling hostile to the United States Gov- 
ernment. You recollect that during the session 
— it was on the 14th of May — a proclamation 
came out which acknowledged the South as a 
belligerent Power, and proclaimed the neutral- 
ity of England. A little time before that — I 
forget how many days — Mr. Dallas, the late 
Minister from the United States, had left Lon- 
don for Liverpool and for America. He did 
not wish to undertake any aflairs for this Gov- 
ernment, by which he was not appointed — I 
mean that of President Lincoln — and he left 
what had to be done to his successor, who was 
on his way, and whose arrival was daily ex- 
pected. Mr. Adams, the present Minister from 
the United States, is a man who, if he lived in 
England, you would say was one of the noblest 
families of the country. I think his father and 
his grandfather were Presidents of the United 
States. His grandfather was one of the great 
men who acliieved the independence of the 
United States. There is no family in that coun- 
try having more claims upon what I should 
call the veneration and the afl:ection of the 
people than the family of Mr. Adams. Mr. 
Adams came to this country. He arrived in 
London on the night of the 13th of May. On 
the 14th that proclamatiou was issued. It was 



10 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



known that lie was coining; but he was not 
consulted ; the proclamation was not delayed 
for a day, although nothing pressed that he 
might be notified about it. If communications 
of a friendly nature had taken place with him 
and with the American Government, they 
could have found no fault with this step, be- 
cause it was almost inevitable, before the strug- 
gle had proceeded far, tliat this proclamation 
would be issued. But I have the best reasons 
for knowing that there is no single thing that 
has happened during the course of these events 
which has created more surprise, more irrita- 
tion, and more distrust in the United States 
with respect to this country, than the fact that 
that proclamation did not wait one single day 
until the Minister from America could come 
lierc, and until it could be done with liis con- 
sent or concurrence, and in that friendly man- 
ner that would have avoided all the unpleasant- 
ness which has occurred. [Hear, hear.] Novv^, 
I am obliged to say — and I say it with the ut- 
most pain — that without this country doing 
things that were hostile to the North, and 
without men expressing affection for slavery, 
and outwardly and openly hatred for the Union 
— I say that there has not been here that 
friendly and cordial neutrality which, if I had 
been a citizen of the United States, I should 
have expected ; and I say further, that if there 
has existed considerable irritation at that, it 
must be taken as a measure of the high appre- 
ciation which the people of those States place 
upon the opinion of the people of England. 
[Ilear, hear.] If I had been addressing this 
audience ten days ago, so far as I know, I 
should have said just what I have said nov/ ; 
and, although by an untoward event circum- 
stances are somewhat, even considerably, al- 
tered, yet I have thought it desirable to make 
this statement, with a view, so far as I am able 
to do it, to improve the opinion in England, 
and to assuage, if there be any, the feelings of 
irritation in America, so that no further ditli- 
culties may arise in the progress of this unhap- 
py strife. [Hear, hear.] But there has occurred 
an event which was announced to us only a 
week ago, which is one of great importance, 
and it may be one of some peril. [Rear, hear.] 
It is asserted that what is called " international 
Law " has been broken by the seizure of the 
Southern Commissioners on board an English 
trading steamer, by a steamer of war of the 
United States. Now, what is maritime law ? 
You have heard that the opinions of the law 
oflicers of the Crown are in favor of tliis view 
of the case — that the law has been broken. I 
am not at all going to say that it has not. It 
would be imprudent in me to set my opinion 
on a legal question which I have only partially 
examined against their opinion on the same 
question, which I presume they have carefull}' 
examined. But this I say, that maritime law 
is not to be found in an Act of Parliament ; it 
is not in so many clauses. You know that it is 
difficult to find the law. I can ask the mayor. 



or any magistrate around me, whether it is not 
very difficult to find the law, even when you 
have found the Act of Parliament and found 
the clause. [Laughter.] But when you have 
no Act of Parliament and no clause, you may 
imagine that the case is still more difficult. 
[Rear, hear.] Maritime law, or international 
law, consists of opinions and precedents for the 
most part, and it is very unsettled. The opin- 
ions are the opinions of men of different coun- 
tries, given at different times, and the prece- 
dents are not always like each other. The law 
is very unsettled, and, for the most part, I be- 
lieve it to be exceedingly bad. In past times, 
as you know from the histories you read, this 
country has been a fighting country ; we have 
been belligerents, and, as belligerents, we have 
carried maritime law, by our own powerful 
hand, to a pitch that has been very oppressive 
to foreign, and peculiarly to neutral, nations. 
Now, almost for the first time, unhappily, in 
our history for the last two hundred years, we 
are not belligerents, but neutrals ; and we are dis- 
posed to take, perhaps, rather a different view of 
maritime and international law. The act which 
has been committed by the American steamer in 
my opinion, whether it was illegal or not, was 
both impolitic and bad. That is my opinion. 
I think it may turn out, and is almost certain, 
that, so far as the taking those men from that 
ship was concerned, it was wholly unknown 
to and unauthorized by the American Govern- 
ment. And if the American Government be- 
lieve, on the opinion of their law oflicers, that 
the act is illegal, I have no doubt they will 
make fitting reparation ; for there is no Gov- 
ernment in the world that has so strenuously 
insisted upon modifications of international 
lav/, and been so anxious to be guided always 
by the most moderate and merciful interpreta- 
tion of that law. Our great advisers of The 
Times newspaper have been persuading people 
that this is merely one of a series of acts which 
denote tlie determination of the Washington 
Government to pick a quarrel with the people 
of England. But did you ever know anybody, 
who was not very near dead drunk, who, hav- 
ing as much upon his hands as he could man- 
age,. v.'ould oiler to fight everybody about 
him? [Prolonged lavghier i\.w(\. cheering.] Do 
you believe that the United States Govern- 
ment, presided over by President Lincoln, so 
constitutional in all his acts, so moderate as ho 
has been, representing, at this moment, that 
great party in the United States, happily now 
in the ascendency, wliich has always been 
specially in favor of peace, and specially in fa- 
vor of England — do 30U believe that tliat Gov- 
ernment, having upon its hands now an insur- 
rection of the most formidable character in the 
South, would invite the armies and the fleets 
of England to combine with that insurrection, 
and it might be — though it did exasperate the 
struggle — render it impossible that the Union 
should ever again be restored? [Loud cheers.] 
I say that single statement, whether it came 



DOCUMENTS. 



11 



from a public writer or a public speaker, is 
enough to stamp him forever with the cliarao- 
ter of being an insidious enemy of both coun- 
tries. [Cheei's.] "Well, what have we seen 
during the last week ? People have not been, 
I am told — I have not seen much of it — quite 
60 calm as sensible men should be. Here is a 
question of law. I will undertake to say that 
when you have from the United States Govern- 
ment — if they think the act legal — a statement 
of their view of the case, they will show you 
that fifty or sixty years ago, during the wars of 
that time, there were scores of cases that were 
at least as bad as this, and some infinitely 
worse. And, if it were not so late to-night, and 
I am not anxious now to go into this question 
further, I could easily place before you cases 
of wonderful outrage, committed by us v/hen 
we were at war, and for many of which, I am 
afraid, little or no reparation was offered. But 
let us bear this in mind, that during this strug- 
gle " incidents and accidents " will happen. 
Bear in mind the advice of Lord Stanley, so 
opportune and so judicioas. Don't let your 
newspapers or your public speakers, or any 
man, take you off your guard, and bring you 
into that frame of mind under Avhich your 
Government, if it desires war, can have it with 
the public assent, or, if it does not desire war, 
may be driven to engage in it ; for one may be 
as evil and as fatal as the other. What can be 
now more monstrous than tliat we, as we call 
ourselves, to some extent, an educated, a moral, 
and a Cliristiau nation — at a moment when an 
accident of this kind occurs, before wo have 
made a representation to the American Gov- 
ernment, before we have heard a word from 
them in reply — should be all np in arms, every 
sword leaping from its scabbard, and every 
man looking about for his pistols and his blun- 
derbusses? [Cheers.] Why, I think the con- 
duct pursued — and I have no doubt it is pur- 
sued by a certain class in America just the same 
— is much more the conduct of savages than 
of Christian and civilized men. No, let us be 
calm. [Wear, hear.] You recollect how we were 
dragged into the Russian war — "drifted" into 
it. [Cheers.] You know that I, at least, have 
not upon my head any of the guilt of that fear- 
ful war. [Rear, hear.] You know that it cost 
one hundred millions of money to this country ; 
that it cost, at least, the lives of 40,000 English- 
men ; that it disturbed your trade; that it 
nearly doubled the armies of Europe ; that it 
placed the relations of Europe on a mucli less 
peaceful footing than before; and tliat it did 
not effect one single thing of all those that it 
was promised to effect. [Cheers.] I recollect 
speaking on this subject within the last two 
years to a mau whose name I have already 
mentioned — Sir J. Graham — in the House of 
Commons. Ho was a Minister at the time of 
that war. He was reminding me of a severe 
onslauglit which I had made upon him and 
Lord Palmerston for attending a dinner of the 



Reform Club, when Sir C. Napier was appoint- 
ed to the command of the Baltic fleet, and he 
remarked, " What a severe thrashing " — [laugh- 
ter] — I had given them in the House of Com- 
mons. I said, " Sir James, tell me candidly, 
did you not deserve it? " He said, '• Well, you 
were entirely riglit about that war ; we were 
entirely wrong, and we never should have gone 
into it." [Loud cheers.] And this is exactly 
what everybody will say, if you go into a war 
about this business, when it is over. When 
your sailors and your soldiers, so many of thera 
as may be slaughtered, are gone to tlieir last 
account ; when your taxes are increased, your 
business permanently, it may be, injured ; and 
when embittered feelings for generations have 
been created between America and England, 
then your statesmen will tell you that " we 
ought not to have gone into the war." [Cheers.] 
But they v.'i]l very likely say, as many of thera 
tell me, " Wiiat could we do in the frenzy of 
the public mind ? " Let thera not add to the 
frenzy, [hear, hear,] and let us be careful that 
nobody drives us into that frenzy. Remember- 
ing the past, remembering at this moment the 
perils of a friendly people, and seeing the diffi- 
culties by which they are surrounded, let a.:, T 
entreat of you, see if tliere be any real modera- 
tion in tiie people of England, and :t' magna- 
nimity, so often to be found among individuals, 
is not absolutely wanting in a great nation. 
[Great cheering.] Government may discuss this 
matter — tliey may arrange it— they may arbi- 
trate it. I have received here, since I came 
into the room, a despatch from a friend of mine 
in London, referring to this question. T ! lieve 
some portion of it is in the papers this e\ < .iug, 
but I have not seen them. But he states cliat 
General Scott, whom you know by name, who 
has come over from America to France, being 
in a bad state of health, the Genei-al, lately, of 
the American army, and a man of reputation 
in tliat country not second liardly to that which 
the Duke of Wellington lield during his lifetime 
in this country, General Scott has written a 
letter on the American difficulty. He denies 
that the Cabinet of Washington had ordered 
the seizure of the Southern Commissioners, 
even if under a neutral fl.ag. The question of 
kvi^al right involved in the seizure the General 
thinks a very narrow ground cm which to force 
a quarrel with the United States. As to Messrs. 
Slidell and Mason being or not being contra- 
band, the General answers for it tliat, if Mr. 
Seward cannot convince Earl Russell that they 
bore that character, Earl Russell will be able to 
convince Mr. Seward that they did not. He 
pledges himself that if this Government cor- 
dially .agree with tliat of the United States in 
establishing the immunity of neutrals from the 
oppressive riglit of search and seizure on suspi- 
cion, the Cabinet of Washington Avill not hesi- 
tate to purchase so great a boon to peaceful 
trading vessels. [Gi'cat cheering.] Before I sit 
down, let mo ask what is this people, about 



12 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61, 



which so many men in England at this moment 
arc writing, and speaking, and thinking, with 
harshness, with injustice, if not with great bit- 
terness ? Two centuries ago multitudes of the 
people of this country found a refuge on the 
North American continent, escaping from the 
tyranny of the Stuarts, and from the bigotry 
of Laud. Many noble spirits from our country 
endeavored to establish great experiments in 
favor of himian freedom on that continent. 
Bancroft, the greatest historian of his own 
country, has said, in his own graphic and em- 
phatic language, " The history of the coloniza- 
tion of America is the history of the crimes of 
Europe." [Hear, hear.^ From that time down 
to our own period, America has admitted the 
wanderers from every clime. Since 1815, a 
time which many here remember, and which 
is within my lifetime, more than three millions 
of persons have emigrated from the United 
Kingdom to the United States. During the fif- 
teen years from 1845 or 1846 to 1859 or 1860, a 
time so recent that we all remember the events, 
even the most trivial circumstances that have 
happened in that time — during those fifteen 
years, more than 2,320,000 persons left the 
shores of the United Kingdom as emigrants for 
the States of North America. At this very 
moment, tlien, there are millions in the United 
States who personally, or wliose immediate 
parents, have at one time been citizens of this 
country, and perhaps known to some of the 
oldest of those whom I am now addressing. 
They found a home in the far West ; tliey sub- 
dued the wilderness ; they met witli plenty 
there, which was not afforded them in their 
native country ; and they are become a great 
people. There may be those persons in Eng- 
land who are jealous of the States. There may 
be men who dislike Democracy, and who hate 
a Eepublic ; there may be even those whose 
sympathies warm towards the slave oligarchy 
of the South. But of this I am certain, that 
only misrepresentation the most gross, or ca- 
lumny the most wicked, can sever the tie which 
unites the great mass of the people of this 
country with their friends and brethren beyond 
the Atlantic. [^Loud cheers.'] "Whether the Union 
will be restored or not, or the South will achieve 
an unhonored independence or not, I know not, 
and I predict not. But this I think I know — 
that in a few years, a very few years, the twen- 
ty millions of free men in the North will be thir- 
ty millions, or even fifty millions — a popula- 
tion equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. 
[Hear^ hear.] "When that time comes, I pray 
that it may not be said among them that in the 
darkest hour of their country's trials, England, 
the land of their fathers, looked on with icy 
coldness, and saw unmoved the perils and the 
calamities of her children. [Cheers.] As for 
me, I have but tliis to say, — I am one in this 
audience, and but one in the citizensliip of this 
country ; but if all other tongues are silent, 
mine shall speak for that policy which gives 



hope to the bondsmen of the South, and tends 
to generous thoughts, and generous words, and 
generous deeds, between the two great nations 
that speak the English language, and from their 
origin are alike entitled to the English name. 
[Great cheering.] 



LONDON TIMES ON THE SPEECH, 

In any great crisis we are always anxious to 
hear Mr. Bright. His speech is waited for as a 
necessary preliminary to action. If insult has 
been done to us as a nation, if our commercial 
interests require a definite course of policy, 
and if the country is unanimous and we have 
all thoroughly made up our minds, we then 
instinctively pause, and wait for the speech of 
John Bright. They do the same thing at Eonie 
when they have resolved to canonize a saint. 
There is a Devil's advocate, whose duty it is to 
pour cold water upon the general enthusiasm, 
and to show that the proposed saint, instead 
of being better, was rather worse than other 
people. It is a very useful institution, and 
therefore we have been always foremost in 
supporting that great analogous British insti- 
tution, John Bright. The Irishman of tender 
conscience before he went to confession used 
to beat his wife in order that, in her wrath, 
she might remind him of all his sins. "We liave 
no necessity for any .such cruelty towards our 
political shrew, for without any especial jjrovo- 
cation he is always ready to recapitulate at the 
shortest possible notice all that can be said 
against England and in favor of her enemies. 
Something has been wanting hitherto in the 
discussions as to America. The rights of the 
question seemed to be all one way. Tlie state- 
ments on the other side all turned out to be 
forged history and the arraments false reason- 
ing. Yet we were not quite satisfied. Every 
one waited for John Bright's speech. From 
somewhere or other it was sure to come, and 
until it had been delivered it was not safe to 
predicate that all that could i)ossib]y be alleged 
against this country had been said. 

This event has at length come ofi". Mr, 
Bright has done his accustomed office at Roch- 
dale. "We are sorry to find that he was con- 
strained to be so careful in his choice. Speak- 
ing upon so vast a question as that of peace or 
war with one of the powers of North America, 
it might be expected that he would have 
chosen some conspicuous arena. Manchester, 
which made him a great public character; Bir- 
mingham, which sends him to Parliament ; or 
London, which might afford an audience where 
wealth and intelligence would have mingled, 
might either of them have been some test of 
the general mind. Rochdale, however, is a 
mere nest of furnaces, and has no communion 
of sentiment with tlie country around, nor the 
least possible influence over the public opinion 
of the country generally. Perhaps it is not 
here a matter of much importance where Mr, 



DOCUMENTS. 



13 



Bright speaks, but, as he speaks less for Eng- 
land than for the foreign newspapers, it is 
as well our neighbors should know that the 
sentiments which Mr. Bright wishes to dis- 
seminate just now are not those which he 
thinks it convenient to speak either in his own 
borough or in any of the great cities of the 
kingdom. It might sometimes appear that he 
fancied while speaking he was delivering his 
speech, as he said, " in the city of Boston, or 
the city of New York." But he has delivered 
himself of that wliich we wished to hear ; and 
now, having heard the Devil's advocate, we 
can rest in comfortable security that there is 
nothing untold which can be said against us 
and our country. By far the larger portion of 
Mr. Bright's speech is made up of an elaborate 
defence of the enterprise of the Northern 
States to conquer and subdue the Southern 
States. With this we submit that we, as mere 
neutrals, have nothing to do, and Mr. Bright, 
as a peace man, has still less to do. An apol- 
ogy for the wholesale manslaughter which now 
infests the frontier States and desolates vast 
provinces is creditable to the zeal of Mr. Bright 
rather than to his humanity. It is nothing, 
however, to us. If Mr. Bright chooses to ride 
in blood up to his hdddle-girths to put down 
the rebellious South, and to cry aloud and 
spare not, we have nothing to say against it, 
except to remark that the old Pennsylvanian 
leaven of intolerance appears to be extant in 
high preservation, and that it seems a pity Mr. 
Bright's energy and unscrupulous determina- 
tion do not rule in the White House, instead 
of amusing a sixth-rate provincial town in Eng- 
land. We, however, are neutrals. It is for 
Mr. Bright to break neutrality, and to advocate 
the taking a part with one of these belligerents. 
It is for Mr. Bright to taunt every one who 
will not do a dishonest thing with a want of 
kindliness and sympathy. We have with an 
almost judicial impartiality cautiously refrained 
from siding with either faction, and when Mr. 
Bright affirms that " The Times in this country 
has done all that it could to poison the minds 
of the people of England, and to irritate the 
minds of the people of America," we appeal at 
once to a public which is not very oblivious as 
to what appears in these columns, whether Mr. 
Bright has not publicly said that which is the 
opposite to the truth. If we have sinned on 
either side, it was in placing the worso side of 
our own case forward while the public indigna- 
tion was yet rising, and when the law authori- 
ties had not yet determined the questions of 
international law. While the rights of the case 
Were doubtful we felt that it was our duty to 
moderate, and not to excite, the popular feel- 
ing. General Scott himself has found tlie best 
support for his own weak defence of what has 
happened in a quotation from onr first obser- 
vations upon the intelligence of the outrage 
to our flag We have every wish to give a 



patient hearing to the Devil's advocate, but we 
object to his concentrating those things where- 
of his client is the father entirely upon us. Wo 
may not, perhaps, be prepared to accept Mr. 
Bright's creed as to the Yankee millennium, 
and to hound on the North to exterminate the 
South — as if the Anglo-Saxons of the South 
were not as much our kinsmen as the mixed 
races of the North ; but we do not therefore 
accept the accusation that " the leading jour- 
nal has not published one fair, honorable, or 
friendly article toward the States since Lin- 
coln's accession to office." We have from the 
first adovcated moderation, humanity, and 
peace. We have from the first deprecated a 
fratricidal war. We have shrunk from the 
sanguinary energy of the peace apostle of 
Rochdale, who has now learned to translate the 
advocacy of murder and massacre by the words 
" fairness," " honor," and " friendship." We 
have been content to stand aloof, and simply 
to recommend both parties to try negotiation, 
arbitration — any thing rather than a sanguinary 
civil war. 

It is nmch to be feared that the portion of 
Mr. Bright's speech which relates to the ques- 
tion in dispute between the Federal States and 
this country will be by many considered to 
partake too much of the character of bufioon- 
ery to be upon a level with the importance of 
the subject. The sneer at " what is called in- 
ternational law," is surely rather w^orthy of a 
jester than a statesman, and the similitude of 
the United States to a man nearly dead drunk, 
and ready to fight anybody, is much more face- 
tious than argumentative. But we have one 
grain of comfort. Mr. Bright has nothing to 
say in favor or in defence of the outrage com- 
mitted upon our flag. He promises that upon 
some future occasion he will produce instances 
of many similar outrages committed by us fifty 
or sixty years ago. We disposed of this style of 
argument yesterday, and shall not condescend 
to reiterate the obvious answer to-day. Mr. 
Bright, however, has not added a line to the 
little the Americans and their advocates have 
said in excuse of what they have done This is 
very reassuring. If Mr. Bright, who was sup- 
ported at Rochdale by the United States Con- 
.sid, and, no doubt, by all the aid which the 
United States can afford, was unable to do 
more than sneer at all international law, and, 
at the same time, to give up the outrage upon 
the British flag as " impolitic and bad," we are 
tolerably sure that we have heard all that can 
be said against England, and th.it she is indis- 
putably right in taking the straight course to 
vindicate her honor. Let America judge by 
the speech of her greatest admirer in England 
how little can be said for her outrage upon a 
friendly, although a neutral, country. Let her 
know, also, that in this country even this com- 
paratively moderate speech of Mr. Bright is 
but a voice without an echo. 



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